There’s no doubt that the advent of broadly-available
Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers businesses the prospect of increased
productivity and accelerated innovation, whilst also enabling society to help
solve some of its toughest - and most persistent – challenges: disease, famine,
climate control and natural disasters.
AI is already delivering tangible economic benefits for
many organisations across Asia Pacific. For example, leading global container
shipping company OOCL reports that applying AI to their business is already
saving them $10m annually, whilst Apollo Hospitals in India are using AI to
help predict heart disease amongst its patients.
While the benefits of Artificial Intelligence are
undeniable, AI is a disrupter, especially when it comes to the displacement of
jobs. The ramifications of AI on the workforce is a regular topic of discussion
among CEOs and government leaders across Asia Pacific.
That said, it is also pertinent to examine the far-reaching
implication that AI brings to the workforce. Will the social disruptions that
AI can potentially create ultimately overshadow its benefits?
The Evolution of Jobs in the AI-Shaped Future
To put things in perspective: large-scale disruption is a
challenge with every industrial revolution. Technology will always have
profound implications on the creation, elimination, or evolution of jobs. For
example, just a few years ago, it was common for offices to have a pool of
typists. Clearly, this role is no longer relevant in today’s modern office, thanks
to the proliferation of personal computing. The advent of AI will reshape jobs
in a similar way.
Microsoft recently partnered with the leading technology
advisory firm IDC to assess the digital transformation landscape across the
region. Titled “Unlocking the Economic Impact of Digital Transformation in Asia
Pacific”, the study surveyed 1,560 business and IT leaders from 15 Asia Pacific
economies . It showed that 85% of jobs in Asia Pacific will be transformed in
the next three years. (See chart below)
Diving deeper into the results, the respondents said that
over 50% of jobs will be redeployed to a new position and/or retrained and
upskilled for digital transformation. What’s interesting is that the Study
shows that 26% of jobs will be newly created roles from digital transformation,
which will offset the 27% of jobs that will he outsourced or automated. In
other words, the overall workforce effect will be broadly neutral.
These are clear indications that how businesses organize
work, how people find employment and the skills people need to prepare for the
workforce are changing dramatically. These changes are likely to accelerate in
the decade ahead.
As AI continues to transform the nature of work, education,
skills, and training will have to transform as well in order to ensure that
people are prepared for the jobs of the future and businesses have access to
the talent they need to succeed. And as traditional models of employment
transform, there will be a need to modernize legal frameworks to recognize new
ways of working, provide adequate worker protections, and maintain social
safety nets.
Building a Better Future Together
The recently published, ‘The Future Computed, Artificial
Intelligence and its Role in Society’, makes sense of this AI conundrum as it
offers three conclusions on AI and the impact on work and jobs:.
(You can download the book here for free today).
• First, the
organizations and countries that will fare best in the AI race will be early
adopters. The reason is straightforward: AI will be useful wherever
intelligence is needed and it helps us to be more productive in nearly every
field of human endeavor, which can lead to economic growth. Put simply, new
jobs and economic progress will favor those that embrace the technology, not
those that resist it.
• Second,
while AI will help improve daily life in many ways and help solve big societal
problems, its important to remain critical when examining the issues that it
can bring. Beyond AI deployment, what’s equally important is to prepare society
and the workforce for the impending changes that AI will catalyze by addressing
the need for strong ethical principles, the evolution of laws, the importance
of training for new skills, and even labor market reforms. These aspects must
all come together in order to make the most of this new technology.
• Third, to
fully realize the benefits of AI, and to minimize the negative outcomes,
technology companies, private and public organizations need to come together
with a sense of shared responsibility -- AI must be democratized.
The AI building blocks that Microsoft is developing today,
such as computer vision, speech, and knowledge recognition, should be made
available to all so that they can create their own AI-based solutions. AI
should not be controlled by just a few organizations. The AI future should be
built by everyone with a vision on how AI can benefit economies and societies
as well as how we can tackle AI issues and their implications.
The future of AI can burn brightly or dimly. Disruption is
a norm, and the ability to adapt to disruptions is what defines all of us. And
to adapt to the fast-approaching, rapidly evolving AI future, all parties –
from workers to enterprises to governments - will need to spend more time
listening to each other, collaborate and constantly learn new knowledge and
skills.
